1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless multi-hop mesh sensor networks, and more particularly to a method and system for controlling a camera through a wireless sensor network, in which the camera communicates with a plurality of wireless sensor nodes forming the wireless network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, the provisions of Near Field Communication (NFC) and advanced chip technology enabled networking between micro-sensors. A network having such sensors is referred to as a wireless sensor network.
The wireless sensor network is utilized for surveillance, monitoring, position identifying services, etc. and consists of (a) sensor nodes that detect, measure, and provide physical data, such as light, sound, temperatures and motion which are conditions in physical space, and (b) a sink-node at the center that receives and analyzes data flooded from the sensor nodes.
Normally, the sensor nodes include one or more sensors, actuators, microcontrollers, EEPROMs of several tens of KB, SRAMs of several KBs, frash memories of several hundreds of KB, ADC (Analog to Digital Converter), NFC modules, and a power supply for these components.
As the utilization of information on positions or situations has become more and more important recently, more advanced position identifying technology that uses cameras in cooperation with the wireless sensor network is required. Since there is a distance limitation of the wireless communication in transmitting results sensed at the sensor nodes to users, the use of Multi-Hop communication is required.
Meanwhile, webcams, which are cameras connected to the World Wide Web, permit the user to directly control the camera and capture the subject of the user's interest online. This allows the user to monitor any place by using their monitors over the internet in real time when webcam is installed.
However, the webcams cannot capture areas and objects of the user's interest automatically without the direct control by the user because the webcams are fixed. In addition, since built-in sensors or sensors with a wire connection in a short distance can be controlled based on physical sensing information thereof, there is a problem that unnecessary reactions to false sensing are generated.